In Albany, searching for hope in the grim opioid war

Published 9:01 pm, Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Andrew McKenna signs a copy of his heroin addiction memoir, "Sheer Madness" (Paul Grondahl/Special to the Times Union)

Andrew McKenna signs a copy of his heroin addiction memoir, "Sheer Madness" (Paul Grondahl/Special to the Times Union)

Image 2 of 4

Andrew McKenna with friend James Long, an Albany attorney and City Court Judge candidate. (Paul Grondahl/Special to the Times Union)

Andrew McKenna with friend James Long, an Albany attorney and City Court Judge candidate. (Paul Grondahl/Special to the Times Union)

Image 3 of 4

Andrew McKenna talks with Assemblyman John McDonald, a Cohoes Democrat, at Recovery in the Park in Albany's Washigton Park on Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017. (Paul Grondahl/Special to the Times Union)

Andrew McKenna talks with Assemblyman John McDonald, a Cohoes Democrat, at Recovery in the Park in Albany's Washigton Park on Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017. (Paul Grondahl/Special to the Times Union)

Image 4 of 4

Andrew McKenna (Paul Grondahl/Special to the Times Union)

Andrew McKenna (Paul Grondahl/Special to the Times Union)

In Albany, searching for hope in the grim opioid war

1 / 4

Back to Gallery

Albany

Andrew McKenna, a recovering heroin addict who works on the front lines of the opioid crisis with addiction-treatment facilities, fields a dozen calls a day from parents desperate to save their sons and daughters.

They are unnerved to learn that their kids, typically in their late teens and early 20s, are one fentanyl- or carfentanil-laced bag of heroin away from a fatal overdose. These new iterations of synthetic opioids are extremely lethal, up to 100 times more potent than heroin. They are also cheap and plentiful, with a tiny glassine bag, or one hit, now selling for $3 or $4 on the street, compared to $20 a bag less than a decade ago.

It takes multiple injections of naloxone, also known as Narcan, to reverse an overdose of the powerful new synthetic opioids that have begun showing up in the Capital Region. "One mother told me it took six doses of Narcan to bring back her son," McKenna said. "Another mother's son had survived 13 overdoses."

It is going to get worse.

More Information

"The sad reality is that the opioid crisis hasn't reached a peak yet. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, projects that heroin addiction and overdose deaths will continue to rise for five to 10 more years," said Assemblyman John McDonald, a Cohoes Democrat who is also a pharmacist. "We still have a lot of pain and suffering to go through."

McKenna and McDonald spoke at Recovery in the Park on Saturday in Albany's Washington Park. About 400 people attended the inaugural daylong program, which included literature from treatment facilities, music, food vendors and people sharing their stories of recovery and of hope.

"The problem is that we have never treated addiction like the chronic illness it is," said Robert Lindsey, former CEO of Friends of Recovery of New York, a grass-roots advocacy group. "We need to invest in addiction treatment at the level we invest in treating diabetes and heart disease and other chronic illnesses."

Lindsey, 65, has helped thousands of people addicted to drugs and alcohol get into treatment during a 40-year career spent working for the Betty Ford Center and other national organizations. He served as master of ceremonies for Saturday's event. "Addiction is addiction. Education, enforcement and treatment are critical," he said. Alcohol addiction kills about 88,000 Americans annually, compared to an estimated 60,000 people who died from drug overdoses in 2016, the highest ever and roughly double what it was a decade ago, according to the CDC.

These statistics do not surprise McKenna, who understands addiction from the inside. I profiled McKenna in 2015 as part of a multimedia Times Union series in collaboration with WMHT-TV, "The Dragon Lives Here: Heroin in the Capital Region."

McKenna served five years in federal prison after his addiction spiraled out of control and he robbed six banks and two supermarkets in five counties. He was a lawyer who worked in a prominent Albany law firm and was a former U.S. Justice Department attorney and Marine Corps Judge Advocate General attorney. He was nearly killed by a drug dealer who robbed him, heroin destroyed his first marriage, he lost custody of his two sons and he was disbarred – a harrowing slide he recounted in a 2015 memoir, "Sheer Madness." He sold copies of the book on Saturday and donated the proceeds to Friends of Recovery of Albany County.

McKenna, 48, has been clean for 11 years and is a market director for Addiction Campuses, which runs treatment facilities in Massachusetts and three other states. "I still miss trial work and being in the courtroom, but I think I've found my calling," said McKenna, who lives in West Sand Lake with his wife, Dawn, and their 11-year-old son, Quinn. He has two teenage boys, Aidan, 16, and Will, 14, from his previous marriage and his wife has two daughters and a son.

"Thank God I don't have cravings for heroin anymore," he said. "The key to successful long-term recovery is meetings, a community of supportive friends and the medicine of fellowship, whether it's 12-step or another program."

When he was recently hospitalized for abdominal pains diagnosed as pancreatitis, which runs in his family, a doctor prescribed morphine. He told the nurse he was a recovering heroin addict and requested Motrin instead. "If I didn't have a strong recovery, one pill of morphine could have sent me relapsing," he said. "We need a lot more education about addiction."

McKenna speaks often in high schools. He tells his story to students in rural, suburban and urban districts. He asks the teenagers how many of them know someone who is using drugs. Nearly all the hands usually go up.

"You have to tell someone," McKenna says to the teens. "It's hard to tell your parents, but tell a teacher you trust or a school counselor. You could save a life."

After a school visit, he'll find missed calls on his cellphone from desperate parents trying to save their kids from the scourge of heroin.

Paul Grondahl is the director of the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany and a former Times Union reporter. He can be reached at grondahlpaul@gmail.com.